As technology advances to provide greater mobility, more and more people are carrying and using multiple wireless electronic devices (i.e., an ensemble) for a variety of reasons such as work, education, and/or entertainment. For example, a person may carry and use an ensemble of portable wireless electronic devices including a laptop computer, a handheld computer, a tablet computer, a wireless (e.g., cordless or cellular) telephone, a pager, an audio and/or video player (e.g., an MP3 player or a digital video disc (DVD) player), a game device, a digital camera, a navigation device (e.g., a global positioning system (GPS) device), and/or a wireless peripheral (e.g., a keyboard, a mouse, a printer, etc.).
Many of the wireless electronic devices mentioned above may operate in various modes that require different amount of power. In particular, a wireless electronic device may operate in an active mode, which requires a greater amount of power relative to other operating modes (i.e., high power consumption level). In the active mode, the wireless electronic device may execute an application or a program to generate a visual output on a display screen and/or an audio output via a speaker, to receive a user input via a human interface device, to read and/or write to a memory, and/or to transmit and/or receive communication information for an individual to converse in a phone call, check for voice messages, browse the Internet, etc. For example, a cellular telephone may require full power to operate in the active mode for the individual to place and/or receive a phone call. The wireless electronic device may also operate in an idle or standby mode when the individual is not actively operating the wireless electronic device but the wireless electronic device is readily available to operate in the active mode when necessary. For example, a cellular telephone may operate in the idle mode to monitor for a paging message from one or more base stations via a paging channel. In particular, the paging message is indicative of an incoming communication such as a voice call, a text message, streaming media, etc. Thus, the cellular telephone may require less power to operate in the idle mode than in the active mode (i.e., medium power consumption level).
To further reduce power consumption, the wireless electronic device may operate in a sleep mode (i.e., low power consumption level) by disabling or shutting down components that are not in use (e.g., display screens, disk drives, application processor, transceivers, etc.). The wireless electronic device may wake up periodically from the sleep mode and operate in the idle mode to monitor for incoming communications. For example, a cellular telephone may wake up from the sleep mode to monitor for a paging message indicative of an incoming communication from one or more base stations via a paging channel. The wireless electronic device may automatically operate in the sleep mode when the wireless electronic device is unused for a predefined time period and/or after operating the idle mode. Alternatively, an individual may manually trigger the wireless electronic device to operate in the sleep mode.
Today, many of the wireless electronic devices mentioned above may have similar or identical wireless communication capabilities. In one particular example, some cellular telephones and handheld computers may operate in accordance with an identical wireless communication protocol such as Global System for Mobile communications (GSM), General Packet Radio Services (GPRS), Wideband CDMA (WCDMA), Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), etc. to communicate with communication networks. However, wireless electronic devices in an ensemble fail to coordinate with the each other to perform similar or identical tasks. For example, a cellular telephone and a handheld computer in an ensemble of wireless electronic devices may individually monitor a paging channel for incoming communications. Although each of the wireless electronic devices in the ensemble may reduce power consumption individually by operating in different modes (e.g., idle mode and/or sleep mode), the ensemble of wireless electronic devices fails to operate collectively and share common resources to further manage and optimize power consumption.